In Deep Water
by pingipenguin
Summary: When a swimming lesson goes wrong, Joel makes an offhand comment that provides Ellie with a much-coveted glimpse into his pre-apocalyptic world. Features Ellie-swears, regular swears, the usual LoU line up. One-shot.


_**Standard Disclaimer:**_** Woe unto me that I don't own rights to "the Last of Us". I'm merely splashing in Naughty Dog's all-seasons, all-purpose, all-awesome paddly pool.**

**o~O~o**

If Joel could have made a list of the material things he missed most about his old life, it would have stretched on for miles. Occupying top spot of this hypothetical list was coffee, followed closely by comfy beds and air conditioning. Yeah … what he wouldn't do for the latter on a day like today. The hot, humid air pressed down on him like a physical weight and the sun, that angry fire in the sky, blazed as if its fucking mother had been insulted. Aside from the few months they'd already spent in Jackson, Joel had never before been to Wyoming and so couldn't determine if these sorts of temperatures were considered normal for the summer months. If they weren't, then thrice damn the god who had a say in conjuring them. If they were … well, hell would freeze over before anyone caught wind of him complaining about it.

As if to contrast herself further to her grizzled companion, the sturdy girl trudging alongside him huffed irritably. "Fuck me, it's hot!"

"Do bears shit in the woods?"

At this Ellie's head shot up, her eyes narrowing at him dangerously. "Seriously, Joel?"

"Can't let it get to you, Ellie," Joel replied calmly, raising a hand to swipe at the sheen of perspiration stickying his forehead. "Sides, the place is only up just ahead."

"You said that ten minutes ago!"

"Yeah. And we're ten minutes further along." He paused to grace her with a wicked grin, throwing a burly arm across her narrow shoulders. "C'mon, kid. Ain't no sense in draggin' your heels."

Ellie scoffed and pushed at his arm. "Schyeah, right. Whatever you say, Joel."

Joel smirked and let his arm drop back to his side, using the other one to push aside a stringy column of what he seriously hoped wasn't poison oak. In case it _was_, he let Ellie slip by him before following suit and letting the natural curtain fall back into place, blocking any sign of their passage. A good thing too, considering the number of bandits and Infected infesting the area. Still, he scuffed his boot in the dirt to make sure they wouldn't miss their way later on.

"Holy shit! Joel, I think I see it!"

Ellie stood a short distance away on a small ridge, overlooking the depression that hopefully held the elusive pool. Pursing his lips and letting loose a small whistle, Joel hastened to join her. "Damn. I was startin' to think we'd never find it."

Ellie's back stiffened imperceptibly. Slowly, as one might be inclined to do if told there was a bear to their back, she turned to face him and arched an eyebrow. "I thought you said you knew where you were going."

Her voice didn't lilt at the end, meaning the would-be question had instead been honed as a weapon of mass revelation. Joel gave a sheepish laugh and looked away. "I, uh … yeah. That was mostly for show." His head reached up to muss the hair at the back of his head.

"I knew it," Ellie said triumphantly. "I fucking _knew_ it!" Laughing, she punched his arm and began shimmying down the incline to where, as Joel now saw, there did indeed lie a pool of undisturbed water, fed by a small waterfall and trickling out into an even smaller stream. "You've been rumbled, old timer!"

"Hey, hey!" Joel protested. Slowly, so as not to place undue stress on his weathered bones, he mirrored her descent. "I got us both to Salt Lake City and back, didn't I?"

He was glad Ellie's back was to him; his wince was visible from space._ Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ Though some months had passed since their little _escapade_ in Salt Lake City, the subject was still a touchy one; a raw, unhealed niggle that Joel knew had the potential to destroy everything he and Ellie had worked so hard to achieve – namely, their present relationship. He knew beyond doubt that Ellie hadn't bought his bullshit story, but neither had she called his bluff on the ridge and that in itself gave him hope. Despite everything, she was still willing to place her trust in him, and in time – when she was ready – Joel hoped she'd realise that his actions were justifiable. That it was better to have her here, alive and breathing, than for her to become a martyr for a species that didn't deserve saving.

Joel didn't regret for a moment what he'd done. He latched on this belief and clung fiercely as Ellie, the laughter dying from her eyes, turned to him and said somewhat dully, "Yeah." Then they were at the water's edge, and Joel found himself in the rare position of having dodged the same bullet twice.

To dispel the tension he knelt and dunked his hand, trying to get a feel for any hidden currents. To his relief there were none, though the water was colder than he'd expected and the edge dropped off quite suddenly. A shiver crawled his length to blissfully counteract the sun's lethal influence.

"What?" Ellie's suspicious voice cracked him from his stupor. She had knelt alongside him and was making to likewise trail her fingers in the stream, a mild frown puckering her brow. Seized by an evil influence, Joel reached out to stop her.

"Don't, there's no need. Water's fine." He stood and stripped himself of his pack and shirt before wading in, making a concrete effort not to shiver despite the water's stinging bite. He was careful to go in gradually so as not to alert Ellie to the sudden drop-off. "C'mon."

Ellie rose a great deal more hesitantly. Tentatively, she peeled the sticky shirt off her back to reveal an ill-fitting bathing costume they'd rustled up from a neighbouring house. Joel kept his eyes averted as she removed her pants and shoes, wriggling her toes in the cold sand lapping the water's edge. Huffing once as if to steel herself, she waded in to ankle-deep, slipped over the drop-off and found herself submerged up to her shoulders. Her muted scream reverberated off the surrounding gully walls.

"Ah-ah! Ah! Oh, fuck … it's freezing!" She glared at Joel through slitted eyes. "You could have warned me, motherfucker!"

It was testament to how long the pair had spent together that Joel didn't even bat an eyelid at Ellie's choice of words. Instead, he arched a brow and folded his arms across his muscular chest, adopting a firm stance even as cold mud began to squirm between his toes. "Would you have come in at all if I had?"

"Motherfucker," Ellie muttered sullenly. She rarely admitted she was wrong, but in the absence of a lightning rebuke Joel succinctly assumed she'd conceded his point. A smirk tickled the more expressive parts of his careworn face.

"Alright. The water ain't gonna get any deeper than this, so we're gonna push out a bit further. Give ourselves room to work on some basic strokes."

A look of uncertainty crossed Ellie's face but, to her credit, she didn't object. Joel's high estimation of her rose up another notch. Carefully, he picked his way out to the middle of the stream, feeling the slight current pull at the cords of his pants. A series of quick gasps alerted him to Ellie's approach. He turned and extended an arm to her, giving her grounding point upon which she latched like a dying man. Brown eyes met green, and Joel fancied he saw a defiant flare in the latter. "_What_?" she demanded.

Ever caustic was his baby girl.

"Nothin', nothin'. You ready for this?"

"As I'll ever be."

"Alright. First thing's first – I'm gonna teach you how to stay afloat."

And he proceeded to do just that. Joel balanced her carefully on her back so her midsection was sandwiched between his palms and talked to her of breathing evenly so she wouldn't panic and sink. Watching her face, wary but focused, he decided to kick it up a notch and retracted his hands. Ellie was a capable kid, and in light of all they'd faced a swimming lesson was sure to be child's play for her. However, the instant she found herself without anchorage, Ellie dipped inwards and yelped, adopting a frantic flail that spewed up huge volumes of water.

"Agh! Joel! Don't do tha –" A large splash sent a fair portion of water down Ellie's gullet; she hacked and twisted madly, prompting Joel to reach out and steady her.

"Easy, girl," he soothed as she sat somewhat upright in his embrace, coughing to expel what fluid she'd inhaled. "I'm right here. There ain't nothin' to be scared of."

"I know, I know." Ellie grimaced and spat, her green eyes tracking its rapid progress downstream. "I just wasn't expecting it, you know. Caught me off guard."

Joel chuckled. "Alright. But you gotta realise Ellie, we're standing in just a few feet of water. You ain't gonna drown. I'm gonna try you again."

Though she was understandably reluctant to repeat the experience, Ellie eventually allowed Joel to get her on her back. Being careful to acknowledge her limitations Joel helped Ellie towards mastering the back float, moving swiftly onto a basic dog-paddle once it became apparent she was proficient enough to manage herself. To his dismay, said dog-paddle consisted mainly of her floundering about in a desperate attempt to keep her head above water. It was quite easily the furthest thing from graceful he'd ever seen but for the time being it would have to do. At least she wouldn't drown should she ever accidentally toppled into the town's reservoir.

"Good work, kiddo," he said, squinting at the sun to map its position in the sky. The rapidly executed mental arithmetic informed him they'd stayed out far later than he'd originally intended. "C'mon. Let's get back to Jackson before they close the gates on us."

"Sure," Ellie said. There was a chipper quality to her voice, and as they moved back into the shallows her doggy paddle became more erratic as she fought for the lead. Joel sighed and eyed her fondly. There was still a long way to go, but a start was a start and he revelled in the feeling of pride welling up in his chest. Not since Sarah had won that much sought-after trophy had such a profound emotion had cause to tickle his innards.

Reaching the bank ahead of Joel, Ellie made to pull herself up and over the drop-off. "You coming or what old man?"

"Hold your horses." He tracked her progress before following suit, reaching gladly for the towels in his backpack and the soft familiarity of his favourite plaid shirt. "You'll be the goddamn death of me if I'm not careful," he grumbled, swiping moisture from his chest even as he tossed a second towel to his slight, shivering companion.

"I fucking hope not," Ellie returned. She grimaced as she pulled her clothes on over her wet swimpiece, no doubt experiencing for the first time the post-dip stickiness of cold cloth against skin. "Who else will cover for me on guard duty?"

They laughed at that and Ellie, still smirking, went to swing her bag off the ground and onto her shoulders. Joel didn't quite see what happened next for it happened too fast, but Ellie's legs slipped out from under her and she loosed a startled shriek as she plummeted, sideways, towards the ground. A sickening _crunch_ reverberated around the hollow as her right shoulder connected with an outcropping of loose rocks.

"YAAAARGH!"

"Ellie!" In a flash Joel was crouched alongside her, hands hovering uncertainly over her as she curled into the foetal position, tears erupting in her eyes even as her teeth clamped down on another exclamation of pain. "What is it? What hurts?"

"My … arm," Ellie ground out, gesturing the injured appendage with her good one. "Fuck! Ah! Oh god, this kills …"

"Lie still," Joel commanded. Very gently, he rolled Ellie onto her back so her injury was on display; in response to her muffled growl of agony he placed a hand on her head and gently mussed her hair. Fears of the bone having broken through dissipated as he beheld what was clearly a badly dislocated shoulder. Painful, yes; bloody agony if Ellie's ongoing grunts were anything to go by, but nothing life-threatening. A relieved exhalation escaped him.

"What?" Ellie asked as her body instinctively tried to arch away from the pain. "W-what is it?"

"Nothin' serious," Joel said. He reached out to steady her once more. "Just dislocated."

Despite the whitewash haze of agony her world must have descended into, Ellie dredged up the strength from somewhere to scoff. "_Just_?"

"Yeah. Consider yourself lucky."

"If you fucking say so."

Joel rose and went over to where his pack lay abandoned in the mud, stuffing the towels into it before heaving it onto his back. Crossing back to where Ellie lay he carefully scooped her into his arms so her injured one rested snugly between his chest and Ellie's own. She grimaced at this but seemed to quickly realise it was the most stable position and relaxed a jot. Satisfied, Joel broke into a swift trot back in the general direction of Jackson.

"What, you aren't gonna try and pop it back in?" Ellie's disgruntled voice broke the would-be silence. "This fucking kills, man!"

"I realise," Joel said tersely. "But puttin' it back in hurts a helluva lot more. You yellin' would bring every bandit an' Infected from miles around down on our heads before we could make decent headway against 'em. Better not risk it."

If he'd hoped that would appease her, he'd apparently wished on the wrong fucking star. Ellie squirmed in his grip so her eyes could bore challengingly into his despite the fact that Joel deliberately tried to focus his attention on the quickest and safest route home. "Bullshit. Why not just give me something to bite down on?"

"Because –"

"Because _nothing_! I'm tough, Joel; I can handle a little pain!" She began to wriggle more determinedly. "Put me down!"

"Ellie, knock it off!" Crashing through the curtain of foliage they'd earlier disturbed Joel tightened his grip around the young girl's good shoulder and knees. "I ain't puttin' it back in for you, so just shut up and let me get us home before things get any worse!"

Ellie's struggles abruptly ceased. Surprised, Joel glanced down at her. A look of calculation was veritably swimming over her youthful face.

"What?"

"You've never done it before, have you?"

"Done what?"

"Put a shoulder back in." Ellie's eyes sought out Joel's own. When he fell quickly into his old standby – avoiding a subject broach – she smirked enormously. "Ha! I fucking _knew_ it!"

"Alright, alright, you win," Joel grumbled. "I ain't never done it before, alright? You're dear enough to me that I don't want to fuck it over and give you an injury there ain't a chance in hell of you recovering from."

"Seriously, though. You've never done it? Not in all this time since the outbreak?"

"Nope."

Ellie ought to recognised the clipped nature of his response. She ought to have remembered all the times he'd used it as a deflection method whenever she strayed too far from the path of "k_eepin' our pasts to ourselves_".

"_I'm really sorry about Tess_."

"_Maria told me about Sarah_ …"

"_Were you married_?"

Ellie was nothing if not determined. It more than anything was probably the only reason she was still alive. And yet, there remained something in her psyche that was not wholly dissimilar to the concept of a dog gnawing at a bone – if she wanted something, she'd keep going at it until she got it. And equally unfortunately, oftentimes it led to her being on the receiving end of Joel's frayed temper.

"What about all that time you were in Boston? When you were with Tess, nothing like this ever happened to you? What would you have done if it had?"

"Ellie –"

"Or what about with Sarah? She never popped a joint and forced you to –"

"Ellie, that's enough!"

There it was. Chastised, Ellie slipped into silence, cringing a little against the arms that yet held her so securely. For a time they continued on in silence, a distant screech forcing Joel to pick up the pace. Then, abruptly, he began to speak.

"I never learned to do it because I was always with someone who could. Tess was more than capable of poppin' shoulders back in; when she did her own she always insisted on fixin' it herself, no matter how bad it looked. I was never quite brave enough to ask for a demonstration. And Sarah …"

He heaved an enormous sigh; it pushed against Ellie's arm and made her wince.

"I realise this is a '_no shit, Sherlock_' moment, but you don't know what it was like before the outbreak. People helped each other no matter what – it never centred around trust as it does now. No, when people got hurt they could always go to the hospital and get themselves fixed up. If they did it so bad they couldn't get there, they could always call an ambulance."

"An ambulance?" An image flashed through Ellie's mind fleeting and vague as a dancing sparrow. She almost missed it. "The fuck is that?"

"Big truck. We passed a few on our journey from Boston to Salt Lake – I never pointed 'em out, but they were there. The backs of 'em were filled with medical supplies for supportin' a person on their way to hospital so they wouldn't die. Used to use helicopters, too, for the longer journeys or cases involvin' the more critically ill patients." A forgotten detail suddenly snagged in his mind and he chuckled at it. "They used to make noise too; loudest thing you'd ever heard. It was for cuttin' through traffic if they had a really sick person on board. Lights blazin', sirens screamin' … man, you could hear the thing comin' from a mile away. Amazing."

Ellie was quiet for a long while. Not used to vocalising so extensively, Joel let her absorb this detail, and in holding his peace brought them at a steady jog back to the main road. In the not-too far distance he could just make out the perimeter of Jackson, guarded by silhouettes and illuminated from within by the sort of cosy glow that spoke of home. A brief huff steeled him for the final run.

"So. These ambulances." Unexpectedly, Ellie spoke up from his arms. "Exactly how loud were they? Noisier than ice cream trucks?"

The consistent slap-slap of Joel's booted feet against the asphalt faltered and died away as he stopped, looked down, and for the first time in a while truly beheld the miracle nestled in his arms. Such insignificant details never failed to fascinate Ellie; like a magpie entranced with a shiny spoon, she liked to examine the object of her curiosity from all angles before drawing a succinct conclusion about it. Long ago had Joel realised the same applied to him. Her inquisitive nature, her tenacity in action, her drive to not only know but _understand_ the world from which he originated had begun to at last, at _last_, thaw his tired old heart – thaw something he'd thought could never in a million years be influenced again by emotion, let alone one as poignant as love.

Ellie was his present. She was his future. She was his everything, and damn it all if she couldn't be a part of his past as much as Sarah was. Smiling, Joel hefted her gently so her head could rest against his shoulder and began to walk towards the one thing he'd thought he'd never again have the privilege of possessing again in his life. Home.

"Yes, Ellie. Noisier than ice cream trucks."

**o~O~o**

_**A/N: Yay feels!**_

_**Thanks for sticking with this one folks. I love "the Last of Us" with a slightly deranged passion, so once more I felt the need to pay homage to Ellie and Joel's remarkable relationship. I hope you've enjoyed reading this and I welcome any reviews as I would welcome a basket of newborn puppies on my doorstep. Constructive criticism is the first step towards better writing, and I would be honoured if you would assist me in developing my abilities further.**_

_**Just as a little side note, I'm not American. If I featured any flora or fauna in this that isn't actually found in Wyoming, please tell me! When you live in Australia, if the picture don't feature some gum trees you're lost as a crocodile at the South Pole.**_


End file.
